Public school systems have operated in substantially the same manner for many years. A student, particularly from middle school on, uses at least one printed textbook for each major subject that the student is studying.
Among the various proposals to improve the education process, some have proposed replacing printed textbooks with electronic textbooks. Among the stated advantages of doing so, using electronic textbooks in place of printed textbooks reduces the costs associated with printing and allows for rapid updating of the textbooks. While these advantages are desirable, printed textbooks are still widely used in schools despite the ever increasing use of electronics in peoples"" daily lives. Unlike electronic textbooks, printed textbooks are often easier to read than electronic textbooks, because printed pages have less glare than display screens. Printed pages also have better resolution and contrast than display screens. Also, a student can more easily tab the pages in the textbook than the screens in an electronic textbook. A printed textbook can consequently be easier to review than an electronic textbook. For these and other reasons, printed textbooks are likely to remain in schools for some time to come.
However, using printed textbooks alone has a number of disadvantages. For instance, many of the printed questions at the end of a specific chapter in a textbook may not truly test a person""s comprehension of the subject matter in the chapter. A student can have a desire or tendency to xe2x80x9cpeekxe2x80x9d at the questions and possibly the answers at the end of a chapter in a textbook before they have actually fully read the chapter. Although such questions are meant to be xe2x80x9cfreshxe2x80x9d questions that are presented to the student after the student is done reading a particular chapter, the questions may not in fact be fresh questions to the user. Consequently, after the user reads the chapter and answers the questions, the results obtained may not be an accurate indication of the student""s true understanding the subject matter in the chapter. Also, while the printed questions test a student""s understanding of the subject matter in a chapter in a textbook, the questions may quickly become untimely. Questions and subject matter in a science book, for example, can be readily outdated due to changing current events. Moreover, printed textbooks also have only a limited number of questions at the end of each chapter. Once a user attempts the questions at the end of a chapter in a printed textbook, there are no more questions available for a user to try. The user""s ability to prepare for an upcoming exam can be limited by the number of available questions in the printed textbook. Lastly, it is difficult for a user to record his performance using paper alone. When using only a printed textbook, a user would essentially have to manually record the number of questions that were successfully answered after doing each self-test. This is cumbersome and the user is unlikely to do this.
It would be desirable to retain the use of printed textbooks, while using electronics technology to address the deficiencies of printed textbooks.
Embodiments of the invention relate to study aid apparatuses, methods of using the study aid apparatuses and systems using the study aid apparatuses.
One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method of using a study aid apparatus, the method comprising: a) receiving supplemental information associated with a printed textbook; b) loading the supplemental information into a portable, study aid apparatus; and c) using the portable, study aid apparatus to help learn about subject matter in the textbook.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a portable, study aid apparatus for use in a system including the portable, study aid apparatus and a printed textbook, the portable, study aid apparatus comprising: a) a housing; b) a processor in the housing; c) an audio device for providing supplemental information associated with the printed textbook to the user in audio form, wherein the audio device is coupled to the processor; d) a memory for storing the supplemental information and being coupled to the processor; and e) an input device coupled to the processor.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for providing supplemental information for a printed textbook to a user, the method comprising: a) receiving supplemental information for a plurality of printed textbooks; b) storing the supplemental information for the plurality of textbooks in a database; and c) sending the supplemental information to a user via the Internet, wherein the supplemental information is to be loaded into a portable, study aid apparatus that is to be used with the printed textbook.
Systems including the above-described methods and study aid apparatuses are also disclosed.
These and other embodiments of the invention are described in further detail below with reference to the foregoing drawings and detailed description.